The Wild and Wilderness in Ottoman Gardens and Landscape B. Deniz
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
The Wild and Wilderness in Ottoman Gardens and Landscape B. Deniz Çalış, Assistant Professor & Vice Chair, Department of Architecture, Bahçeşehir University, Istanbul, Turkey This study proposes to examine territorial relationship of wildlife habitats to cultivated gardens and landscapes of the Ottoman world from the 15th century to the late 19th century, focusing on hunting preserves and imperial gardens. Hunting preserves defined a territory of wilderness—in most cases, adjacent to or within cultivated or semi-cultivated landscape(s), neighboring imperial palaces and the urban fabric, or experienced as nodes of wilderness between imperial centers. The study aims to examine the definition, selection, and territorial expansion of hunting preserves; understand and document the inventory of wild animals; and question the idea of wilderness caught up in the activity of hunting as identified by the rules and laws projected for the act of hunting and the location of hunting grounds. From the 16th to the late 19th centuries, imperial gardens housed wild animals as displays of power. In the 16th century, variety of animals represented wealth of the Empire as the center of the Islamic world—ornamenting imperial grounds with the qualities of the Paradise Garden. In the late 19th century, wildlife habitats within imperial gardens became part of exotic collections with animals imported from different countries and various regions of the Empire. The aim of the study is to understand and outline the cultural meaning(s) of the wild and wilderness in Ottoman culture by examining territorial allocations of wildlife habitats either designed, inhabited, visited, pursued, captured or, at times, imagined. B. Deniz Çalış is an architect and historian of Ottoman architecture and landscape culture, practicing and teaching in Istanbul, Turkey. She received her architectural diploma from Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey (METU) in 1995; Master's Degree in Architecture from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY in 1996; and, completed Ph.D. in Architecture at METU in 2004. Çalış received fellowship from The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (1996–1998); grants from TUBA Turkish Academy of Sciences (2008) and Hamad Bin Khalifa Symposium on Islamic Art (2007). She was a junior fellow at Dumbarton Oaks Garden and Landscape Studies (2003–2004). One of the editors of the www.middleeastgarden.com; her work has also been published in TOPOS and Dumbarton Oaks Publications among others. She is currently writing a book on the deviant landscape culture of Ottoman Sufis from the 16th c.–18th c. Çalış is teaching at Bahçesehir University, Faculty of Architecture and Design in Istanbul. Designing a Wilderness for Wildlife: The Case of Pilanesberg, South Africa. Jane Carruthers, Professor, Department of History, University of South Africa In the late 1970s a ground-breaking project began in the Pilanesberg (presently in the North West Province of South Africa) to create a wildlife conservation and eco-tourism venture from marginal farmland. In the process of so doing, there was innovative design at a number of levels—community development, tourist satisfaction and ease of access, scientific and wildlife management, the aesthetics of wilderness, and in national identity formation—that subsequently served as models for similar projects elsewhere in southern Africa. During the apartheid era, a large gambling and luxury hotel was established in Bophuthatswana (near Rustenburg, about 200 km from Johannesburg) in order to draw tourists into the homeland and create employment, secondary industries, and to build local capacity. Close to the hotel complex lies the Pilanesberg, a long-extinct volcano of exceptional natural beauty and scientific and geological interest, which was considered appropriate for a small game reserve to amuse hotel visitors. However, the inventive ideas around community participation, wildlife management and environmental restoration initiated by a number of pioneering ecologists, game rangers and administrators, were important in creating the Pilanesberg National Park which is today a substantial and important tourist and wildlife attraction in the region. Jane Carruthers is a Professor in the Department of History, University of South Africa, Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa and Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge. She has held Visiting Fellowships in Australia and is on the Advisory Board of the Rachel Carson Center for Environmental History at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. She has been President of the South African Historical Society and serves on the editorial boards of numerous academic journals and book series. Jane has written a number of books and chapters in books, as well as authoring more than 30 articles in scholarly journals. Her doctoral thesis, The Kruger National Park: A Social and Political History (1995) is a standard reference work. She is engaged in research around the history of the biology and national parks, colonial art, heritage and cartography in southern Africa and Australia and has been involved in land restitution claims and land reform. From Elephants to Mice: the Impact of Ecology and Spatial Scale on the Design of Conservation Strategies Joshua Ginsberg, Senior Vice President, Global Conservation Program, Wildlife Conservation Society, New York Scale is a critical variable in both design and conservation planning. In this paper, I examine two aspects of scale as it relates to species-focused conservation efforts. I address how order of magnitude changes in geographic extent influence the conservation targets and concerns that conservationists address for individual species, particularly terrestrial vertebrates. At the smallest scale, in captive and extensive breeding facilities (0–10km2), genetics and demographic stochasticity of small populations dominate both conservation science and management. Management of species in small-scale facilities typically focuses on display and education; breeding for species recovery; or breeding to enhance an economic use of wildlife (e.g. hatcheries). At somewhat larger scales (10–100km2), conservationists focus on active management of threats that reduce population persistence, and the active management of small metapopulations becomes more critical. Many protected areas occur at scales of 1,000–10,000 km2: at this scale, conservation focus shifts from intervention at the species level, to greater attention to the management of habitat and threats at the scale of landscapes. Management efforts at scales of greater than 10,000 km2 focus on larger landscape-level planning and policy efforts, emphasizing the matrix between and among protected areas and the connectivity of areas of relatively low human influence. Here conservationists tend to use species to plan conservation programs, or as metaphorical tools to engage real and epistemic communities in conservation efforts, across political boundaries. Such generalizations about scale, while mostly supportable, are highly influenced by the biology of individual species. In closing, I will note how individual requirements—particularly home range size—affect species persistence as organisms interact with human activities and suggest that greater nuance is required when looking at issues of spatial extent and wildlife persistence. Joshua Ginsberg is currently Senior Vice President and Deputy Chief Conservation Officer at the Wildlife Conservation Society. He spent 15 years working as a field biologist across East and Southern Africa leading a variety of mammal ecology and conservation projects. As Director of the Asia and Pacific Program at the Wildlife Conservation Society from 1996 until September 2004, Josh oversaw 100 projects in 16 countries. Dr. Ginsberg was also Acting Director of the WCS Africa Program for 10 months in 2002 and Vice President for Conservation Operations from 2003–2009. He received a B. Sc. from Yale, and holds an M.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton in Ecology and Evolution. He served as the Chairman of the NOAA/NMFS Hawaiian Monk Seal Recovery Team from 2001–2007. Dr. Ginsberg has held faculty positions at Oxford University and University College London, and is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University where he teaches conservation biology and international relations of the environment. He has supervised 14 Masters and four Ph. D. students. He is an author on over 50 reviewed papers, and has edited three books on wildlife conservation, ecology and evolution. Biodiversity of Wildlife Habitats as an Educational Resource: Two case studies, Alice Springs Desert Park and Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary Stuart Green, Principal, Landscape Architect, Green & Dale Associates, Melbourne, Australia The Alice Springs Desert Park in Central Australia is a successful example of landscape design for biodiversity. It brings together botanical, zoological and ethno-biological elements which provide a rich educational experience for the visitor. The plant habitat regimes include riverine, sand dune desert and dry woodland areas. The zoological element entails protection of wildlife from predators with the design of 'habitat immersion' animal enclosures. The visitor's experience is enriched by the stories told by the indigenous park rangers and guides, who, as custodians of this park, have an extensive knowledge and appreciation of the wildlife and its Central Australian habitats. The Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary is located within one of the largest and richest surviving examples